July 14 is Bastille Day. Celebrate like the French do: Eat vigorously!

Breakfast

Katherine’s French Bakery

Get up early, frère Jacques, because the croissants come out of the oven at Katherine’s French Bakery at 7 a.m., and they are at their buttery best when still shiny-hot. Choose butter or almond, and tear-and-chew on yours with a cup of bracing French cafe mocha.

While you’re here, load up on goodie-snacks to get you through the day. Choose the ganache sandwich cookies, crispy little delices with a slather of chocolate between them, or the Key lime tartlets, creamy-tangy with a crumbly, butter-stuffed crust.

And hey, it’s a holiday, so what’s an Eiffel Tower-shaped cookie split between friends?

If you have a pulse, you’ll be tempted to place an order for a cake, apropos of nothing in particular. Do it, to pick up later in the week. Choose something lemony, which makes all that buttercream seem, somehow, modest.

Brasserie Ten Ten

The French perfected the concept of the brasserie, that white-tiled and simply appointed class of restaurant characterized by buzzing waiters and clanging plates and shouted orders for escargots and fruits de mer. And Brasserie Ten Ten, located just a block off Boulder’s Pearl Street mall, interprets it beautifully.

Your perfect meal here: a long, lingering lunch.

Start with a plate of oysters, tossed back with champagne, which you’ll continue to sip through your salade simple, a crunchy bed of butter lettuce with fried capers and a tangy vinaigrette. Next, a glass of Burgundy pinot noir and a plate of steak frites, a quickly cooked slab (choose hanger or filet) next to a pile of salty fries. Tarragon-sweet bearnaise sauce on the side.

Later, share a dish of profiteroles and cups of coffee before heading out the door for a stroll along the mall.

Z Cuisine

Denver’s best French restaurant is also its most romantic. Not romantic in that soft-music, flickering-candlelight, strawberries-and- champagne way, but romantic in that sexy, stylish, swirling conversation, two-fork, stolen-kisses-at-a-window-table kind of way.

Don’t bother showing up on a Sunday, Monday or Tuesday, when the place is closed. Your best option on other nights is to come early or late.

Start dinner with a glass, not of wine, but of refreshing, softly sparkling cider from northern France. Order a house charcuterie plate to share while you decide what else from the chalkboard menu to add.

Whatever it is, cassoulet on cool nights or a piece of fish and a salad on warm nights, eat it slowly and consciously, because it will be the best meal you’ll have all week. Sip wine and stare into each other’s eyes. It’s the French way. Z Cuisine, 2239 W. 30th Ave., 303-477-1111, Denver, zcuisineonline.com

While network affiliates battle for precious slivers of attention and advertising dollars, digital distractions multiply, which has led to an overall decline in local TV-news viewership, according to a 2018 report from the Pew Research Center.